Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Stupid is as stupid does.

Adding to the list of stupid things to do with a baby: buy large items. For example, today I decided I'd had enough of this hell-hole condo looking like, well, a hell-hole (once again-another post for another day re: fighting with overtime working hubby about said hell-hole needing organisation) so...off I went to market to buy BIG Rubbermaid containers to organise with. Basically, baby boys out-grown clothes, coupled with my incessant materialism, tripled with a laundry room of tools leftover from our reno attempts, quadrupled with our messy nature=a disaster in our measly 900 sq. ft.

So I am strolling around and very excited at the aisles and aisles of colored containers ripe for the picking, laden with fresh possibility; stacked, clean goodness with clear labels of contents slumbering peacefully inside. Oh how I wistfully gazed, picked up, stacked in combination, tried covers, tried different combos in different aisles...leaving a mess of piled bins in my wake-to come back and revisit and compare of course. I'm sure the lady-workers I saw with their price guns walking by were none too pleased. Juuuuust as I thought maybe I was reaching a pinnacle decision about how to stack these bins in my closet -baby boy decided he was hungry.

Inner monologue: (ok, outer monologue since I say everything to baby boy nowadays making me appear crazy!) Oh baby boy...pleeeeeeeeeeeeease take a bottle! I cannot, though I have before, pull my boob out here! I mean, where will I sit? On the display toilets in the plumbing section? Lord...if I have to I will. Actually it doesn't look too busy over there....NO. You must take a bottle. I insist. All of this refusing-bottle-mumbo-jumbo is nonsense. The Sex and the City movie is coming out on Friday and by god, I WILL go see it. You WILL stay with a sitter or at the least, your dad. Pleeeeease? Ok. Let's try.

Miracles of all miracles he drank the bottle in aisle 35 next to the closet organisers while he sat in the stroller and I held it for him...and I envisioned my completed closet. He is finished and I burped him and then, of course he will have none of going back into the stroller. None. He screams. I give in and hold him in his usual position: facing out -only now he can grab at things, which is new. I make my decision, pile the Rubbermaid's with their lids together with one hand (not easy I tell you) and then look at my situation with an outside eye. Stroller+Rubbermaid's+babe in arms=impossible. So in he goes, Rubbermaid containers in one hand with a foot shoving them awkwardly along the way, other hand on stroller. I make it to aisle 28 and he is blue in the face, doing the no-breathing scream. I sigh. I scowl at two old people buying their bulk teepee who stare agog at my screaming baby and tut-tut (I just know some helpful suggestion is on their lips). I take baby boy out. Now what!?!? F%$k.

The only thing I could do was flag down a nice lady-worker with a price gun. She was actually really nice. She got a cart and wheeled the Rubbermaid's all the way to the front cash for me. Awesome. The chicks in front of me are cashing their UI checks and buying socks and gum. Huuuuuurrrry I think (or I hope I said that inner-monologue style?) But they take forever. Baby boy is not as light as he used to be and I'm getting tired at this point and losing my patience. Oh yeah...did I mention he can grab things now? When I finally get to pay he sweeps my wallet off the counter and across the floor, which I have to do an awkward squat to pick up while holding him. He grabs at the debit machine messing up my pin number. "Maam that was not approved." AGh. Finally we are done and I'm still feeling hopeful about this organising thing, but then how to get them out the mall into the car?

Here's how I did it: I get the checkout girl to pile the Rubbermaids precariously on top of the stroller. No, baby boy wasn't in there, but I thought about it! I held baby boy in one arm while I pushed vvvvvveeeery slowly with the other. Many people stared at me. Most of them were waiting for the whole tower o' Rubbermaid to fall, I'm sure, then to scoff or laugh at me depending. But it didn't! I get out to the parking lot, but realize if I take the stroller down the slope-y ramp of the walkway into the parking area it will tumble over. Then I'd have a mess in the middle of traffic. Not good. SO...I kick the Rubbermaids down off the stroller while I hold one of their handles in one hand to guide them to fall in a decent spot. This worked relatively well. They landed right beside a couple of old dudes enjoying a Starbucks outside. Perfect. Then I leave them sitting there while I take baby boy and stroller to the car. I pack baby boy into his car seat and the stroller into the back and for a split second I think about just running back to get the bins, leaving him there. I mean...I was only about 4 cars down the aisle of cars away from where I left them. But alas...no. It could not be done.

See, my car got hit while I was parked the other day. No we weren't in it and its fine (yet anotherpost). But if that happened and I'd left baby boy in the car? I'd die. The GUILT. So I decided the only thing to do was drive the car up to the curb and then put on my flashers, jump out and load in the bins. Whew.

Sadly, I was hungry. Sadly I wanted a Starbucks and a little stroll around the mall. I could have re-parked and gone back in. You can imagine that if baby boy wanted out of the stroller inside the store that now almost 20 minutes later he really didn't want in... so I drove off with my mad baby. Off to get an oil change. Tick, tick, tick things off my list. I may not be much of a housewife, but I know how to get things done. Yes...next time I go to buy a big item I know not to go alone. But I did it. It was stupid and highly frustrating and slightly embarrassing. But it's done.

So you see, overtime-working hubby, its fairly simple to accomplish things once you put your mind to it. Those Christmas decorations I asked you in, oh....January, to put down in the storage locker? Yeah...the ones you put your shoes and coat on every night when you get home (for 4 months now). You can do it! I have faith in you. See, I might do stupid things because I am rash and just jump in on a rampage when I get an idea ("we need to organise NOW!")...but stupid is as stupid does. Does. Done.